Castaway Dreams
by ncfan
Summary: -Merope, Tom Riddle, Sr.- Even dust motes can dream.


**Characters**: Merope, Tom Riddle, Sr.**  
Summary**: Even dust motes can dream.**  
Pairings**: Onesided Tom x Merope**  
Author's Note**: I've been wondering how to break into the _Harry Potter_ fandom for a while, and though I had a few other ideas, I decided to do this instead; I always felt so sorry for Merope. She was wrong to drug Tom, but he was wrong to leave her pregnant too. Hope you all like it, and that my characterizations are alright. Feedback is always, always appreciated.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own _Harry Potter._

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_The garden has been her refuge, her only place of relative safety, the only place where the shadows can cover her and hide her from the madness within the shack beyond, since she was a little girl. Sometimes, she talks to the little garden snakes, the ones Morfin hasn't nailed to the door and the ones who haven't fled from his fearsome violence, running her hands with their stubby, filthy fingernails down their heads and long, sinuous backs (the rare adder never so much as hisses at her in aggression, let alone bite)—snakes don't care about filth. She doesn't talk to them for control, or dominance or plotting. Just for conversation.

Just to talk to someone, anyone, who won't look upon her with disdain and disgust.

And, since Merope Gaunt was a little girl, she has watched, through the gnarled branches of the twisted, overgrown hedgerow, him, Tom Riddle, as he passes by, the shadows of the great oak trees turning her into a shadow herself.

Not that Merope has ever been anything but a shadow.

Marvolo barely sees her except to howl when the soup's too hot or strike her if the dusting hasn't been taken care of or if the food's undercooked by his tastes. Morfin's kindness is nearly non-existent but what kindness he does have makes Merope fear him more, for she knows him to be capable of all things now and waits with fear for the next blow to fall. Maybe he'll nail her to the door like the poor little snakes he manages to catch; maybe he'll just feed her to the snakes themselves.

But she has always dreamt, sat in the garden to make herself invisible and maybe heal and dream a little. Even the defeated, like Merope, those who have never seen daylight and will never know the sweetness of the free air, can dream.

Freedom is a little dusty road that winds across the moors and freedom is a handsome boy named Tom Riddle. Freedom passes by each day, so close, and yet so far out of her reach that Merope feels as though she's grasping at a star and not at a human boy, but still, she's not so defeated that she can't hope.

This is the only time when she feels remotely human, like her skin isn't just old leather and maybe she's worth something more than the dust that breaks up in clouds from the road when Tom rides by on his dappled gray horse. When Merope feels the cool air of late summer break across her skin, watches the light shine through the trees to put a mottled coat of spots and shadows on her pale skin, and breathes air not free but not clogged with dust either, she can dream, and hope.

One day, she'll be away from here, maybe, where there's a world beyond Morfin's nails and dead snakes and Marvolo's barks of orders for food or cleaning. Somewhere where she'll never hear Parseltongue spoken again. Somewhere, where the people are kind.

And maybe, that somewhere will have Tom Riddle in it.

Merope has seen her face in the dusty, dirty windows and in the small shaving mirror Morfin has never used. She knows she is not beautiful, is not even remotely pleasing to look on. Thin dark hair hangs lank and limp past her shoulders and her face is a pale mask of waxen skin and low, heavy cheekbones. Her eyes don't see right. And even if she could not see her own face she would have Morfin's gleeful insults to know _exactly_ what she looks like. But this doesn't stop her.

Her dreams are all she has, and in those dreams lies Tom Riddle.

A boy she has never known but to nod curtly behind a veneer of badly disguised disgust and disdain that even Merope in her infatuation can't fail to detect, but whom she loves anyway. He is everything her brother and father are not: handsome, rich, a creature of grace and most of all _free_, more free than anything Merope has ever seen.

More free than the snakes nailed on the door.

And far more free than Merope, prisoner beneath the trees and hedges and within the shack can ever hope to be.

With him, with Tom Riddle of Little Hangleton, maybe, Merope Gaunt can be free. What does it matter that he is a Muggle? They are purebloods, the Gaunts, and look at them: Marvolo, decrepit and decaying, Morfin violent and deranged, and Merope, defeated, pathetic, and at times barely human. Tom Riddle is a Muggle and far more, Merope knows, than her family can ever be.

He barely knows she's alive but this matters naught to Merope. _One day_, she whispers to the snakes and makes them promise that they won't tell Morfin (_they later betray her out of fear and she can hardly blame them, for all the nails held in his hands_), _One day. One day I will not chase my dreams anymore, but have them instead_.

Merope spends her days chasing stars and fireflies. These dreams are all she has, the only things keeping alive and from the blackest abyss of despair. The only thing that can keep her heart beating, the thought that maybe someday, somebody will love her.

She wants it to be Tom, though, so badly. Anyone could do, she tries to tell herself, but it has to be Tom. Only with Tom can Merope ever see freedom from this rusted cage she hangs from a high ceiling in.

_You will never fly_. The voice takes on qualities of both Marvolo and Morfin. _You're just nothing. You'll never fly._ Then, it's the wind through the hedgerows and the oak trees. Then, it's the garden snakes that coil on her lap, trembling when they hear Morfin's approach. _Stay here. You'll never survive out there. You're just nothing, and things that are nothing can't survive free. They're just dust motes who break apart in the wind. Just like you._

_You're nothing. You will never fly. He will never love you._

She's just a castaway, flotsam, something no one cares about. Her dreams mean nothing to anyone.

But even castaways can dream.


End file.
